One dead at Afghan demo against US-led soldiers: witnesses

One dead at Afghan demo against US-led soldiers: witnesses

by Samoon Miakhial Sat May 10, 7:22 AM ET

MARCO, Afghanistan (AFP) - At least one person was killed and several wounded in Afghanistan Saturday when police opened fire to disperse a protest accusing US-commanded soldiers of killing civilians, witnesses said.
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The clash erupted in the eastern province of Nangarhar as up to 1,000 demonstrators tried to block a road with rocks to protest against the killing of three men in a military operation overnight, witnesses said.

"Police tried to stop them, they threw stones at the police. Police then fired at the crowd. One person was killed and three others were injured," said a local, Darya Khan.

An AFP reporter was shown the body of a man whom protestors said was killed in the police action. Other demonstrators alleged three people were killed but this could not be confirmed.

A doctor in the nearby city of Jalalabad said six people were admitted to hospitals. "They were all wounded by gunshots but their wounds were not deep. They were treated and released," doctor Baz Mohammad Sherzad said.

Provincial police chief Sayed Abdul Ghafar denied his men had caused any casualties, saying they had only fired into the air after being shot at from the crowd. Two policemen were wounded, he said.

Ghafar however said that -- contrary to US-led coalition claims -- the men killed in an operation overnight in the Shinwar district were not militants or from the extremist Taliban movement.

"The coalition conducted independent operations in Shinwar and martyred three people. They were civilians," he told AFP.

Before the demonstration was dispersed, protestors chanted slogans against foreign troops, US President George W. Bush and Afghan leader Hamid Karzai.

"The Americans killed three civilians," said demonstrator Pizwan Khan. "They were my neighbours and I knew they were not Taliban," he told AFP above shouts of "Death to America, death to Bush, death to Karzai."

Others said the dead were an elderly man shot in a mosque and two other men, employed as drivers, shot in their homes.

But the US-led military coalition said it had only killed militants who had attacked troops searching for a "foreign fighter network."






"During the operation, several militants were killed when they attacked coalition forces. Nine militants suspected of foreign fighter facilitation were detained," it said.

It is often difficult to verify events in Afghanistan, where thousands of Afghan and international soldiers are working against several rebel networks, some with Al-Qaeda backing.

International troops are often accused of mistaking civilians for rebels or being heavy-handed in their operations; the soldiers say they work on verified information and have the right to self-protection if attacked.

The issue of civilian casualties is deeply sensitive with many Afghans already wary of the presence of foreign troops seven years after they helped to drive out the extremist Taliban government.

The Al-Qaeda-linked Taliban are fighting to topple the US-supported government in Kabul and have demanded the removal of the international troops, most of them Westerners, on which the country relies.